Graduate Querying Workshop

Querying isn't the same kind of writing as "creative" writing. Like Statements of Work, or Ad Pitches, I suspect it's considered more of a business skill than a writing skill.

Not sure if that's correct. But if it is, then you won't find a query class in the business department, either. A salesmanship class might be a good one, though, to help here.

When I got my bachelor of physics, they never taught us statistics. It was something we were expected to pick up on our own--a tangential skill, but not beyond our abilities.

Query letter writing might be seen similarly. If you can write a book, you can figure out how to write a query letter. It might not be easy to do on your own, but you're capable of it, and so your instructors probably don't want to waste class time on something you don't need their help to master.

Plus, the query letter has evolved considerably in the 15 to 20 years I've known about it. And there are so many different kinds of query letters, depending on the market and specific recipient. I doubt any MFA program can cover them all.

I'm not sure if this is a factor, but at the school I was at, it seems that a lot of the professors honestly didn't know a whole lot about publishing. I'd gotten some advice from them that now I know was pretty iffy even for the time it was given. One of the professors had a book out, but it was with a small university press and wasn't quite what a normal get an agent find a publisher and so on goal would actually require.

I think teaching a course like that would need someone who was more intimately aware of the industry and the changes going on in it and who could be on the ball. Some programs I'm sure have people that fit this category, but I imagine a lot of them just lack someone who has done that degree of research and has the knowledge.

I actually think this sort of thing would be invaluable to students. I'd love to teach a course on...well, basically getting published. It couldn't guarantee being published, but I think students would be served by being taught how to properly write query letters and synopses, how to decide whether to sub to small presses or agents, what to expect from the procedure, how to determine if someone is legit or a bad idea, even self-publishing and what it requires and how to decide whether or not it's a good choice.

Filigree said:

Plus, the query letter has evolved considerably in the 15 to 20 years I've known about it. And there are so many different kinds of query letters, depending on the market and specific recipient. I doubt any MFA program can cover them all.

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This is true, but there are a lot of query basics that could be covered for, say, general fiction and general non-fiction. No gimmicks, tell what the book is about, write in third-person present tense, don't use rhetorical questions, what is and what isn't a writing credit, what is the correct length, and so on. Sure you'd have to say "read the guidelines and follow them," but a lot of the advice that goes into making a good query letter generalizes. I mean, the Query Shark gets queries for all sorts of things, but manages to give advice that goes across all genres.

kaitie said:

I actually think this sort of thing would be invaluable to students. I'd love to teach a course on...well, basically getting published. It couldn't guarantee being published, but I think students would be served by being taught how to properly write query letters and synopses, how to decide whether to sub to small presses or agents, what to expect from the procedure, how to determine if someone is legit or a bad idea, even self-publishing and what it requires and how to decide whether or not it's a good choice.

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You could maybe offer it through a community college as a short continuing education class.

A few years ago, I went to a one-day class that was about how to sell artwork, i.e. how to make a portfolio and approach galleries, the usefulness of issuing a receipt when you sell a work privately, paying your taxes, etc. It was really helpful, and a few hours on a Saturday was all it took.

I would think that the basics of writing a query could be covered in a few pages, not exactly enough for a course. So maybe it could be part of a "business of writing" course... but maybe the schools aren't enthusiastic about the idea of having an entire course devoted to teaching their students how tough the business is and how few of them have a real chance of ever making much real money in their chosen field.

I think MFAs are often a luxury - they can be great, but to paraphrase Good Will Hunting, you can spend a lot of money on something you could have gotten for $1.50 in late charges at the public library. Adding a business course to that sort of program might just be rubbing salt in the wounds of its graduates?

I wanted to learn these very things during my MFA program. I went to an instructor that I admired and asked him if I could take a 1-credit hour independent study about publishing: contracts, queries, all of it.

His response? (A guy who had been teaching for 30 years, had multiple books and short story collections) . . . "You can't teach that stuff. It's just trial and error."

I came to find that his response was pretty much the feelings of most of the MFA faculty. All of them were in their late 50's and early 60's. On one hand, I can understand that queries weren't really "around" back in their early careers, but to state across the board that it can't be learned? Seriously? Do you know how much I've learned coming here? And in workshops and seminars? A LOT.

I think part of it is the average age of most faculty members. As the older ones retire, younger faculty will take over. Perhaps the model will change. Slowly, I'm sure. I always got the feeling that traditional MFA programs want to create starving artists who work for pennies (but prestige). Students and writers are becoming more business savvy on their own and more aware of how the publishing world works. In most disciplines (biology, physics, psychology), academia should be the forerunner in presenting new ideas and adapting or even creating new material. English? Kind of the last ones to catch up.

Just my opinion.

Low res programs seem to address the business end, which I think is marvelous. Unfortunately, since so many low-res programs also allow commercial and genre fiction, the traditional stodgies will look at it as another means to divide between the lit-fic elites and "those genre people."

A lot of the visual arts MFA programs I knew in the eighties actively discouraged 'commercial' goals for their students.

CrastersBabies said:

I came to find that his response was pretty much the feelings of most of the MFA faculty. All of them were in their late 50's and early 60's. On one hand, I can understand that queries weren't really "around" back in their early careers, but to state across the board that it can't be learned?

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They were around, but they were largely around with respect to commerical publishers paying advances and royalties; Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Woolf, Eliot, James, Stein, Joyce—all had to query.

Does this mean we can start charging a tuition fee for QLH?

... the awkwardness factor perhaps.

Students write query letters. Fine.

Students write synopses. Fine.

Students begin bringing in rejection letters,
and asking for real time advice about publishers
and agents they're sub'ing to.

Teacher declares, "That's not my #%&@ job!"

And rightly so, imho.

Ken said:

... the awkwardness factor perhaps.

Students write query letters. Fine.

Students write synopses. Fine.

Students begin bringing in rejection letters,
and asking for real time advice about publishers
and agents they're sub'ing to.

Teacher declares, "That's not my #%&@ job!"

And rightly so, imho.

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Then that teacher has no concept of boundaries. I had a student try to drop a 250k-word sci-fi/zombie book into my lap. Not happening. Sure they can submit pages from it for workshop within class perimeters, but if a teacher tackles the teaching of queries and synopses, then they should be practical enough to know that they're not there to do a student's work for them.

Students from my MFA submitted constantly to literary magazines across 3 years. I don't know of a single one who brought all their rejections in and tried to monopolize a teacher's time with it all.

5thBananaSplit said:

A good many of my old MFA friends have gone off into other non-writing careers--teaching, of course, but also editing or other careers in publishing. Many years after I finished, I learned that my school also offers one of the top (and one of the few) graduate certificates in the business of publishing. How useful it would have been if someone on the faculty had even mentioned that fact to us at the time. We all knew that we would have to do something while we worked to become professional writers or writing teachers, and I would have jumped at the chance to explore some career options.

All this being said, I really enjoyed my MFA years. I don't regret the time, the money, or the sacrifices I made to get there. I just think there's a huge opportunity for MFA programs to become much more competitive and much more valuable to their students.

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I would say of the 7 people in my group:

One is a food critic for a popular local magazine.
One is an editor for a clothing magazine.
One works for a college press as an editor.
One is teaching part-time and writing full-time to finish her novel. (Her husband is helping to support her.)
One is teaching high school English.
One is a writing coach and continues to publish in the lit-mag world.
I'm in a Ph.D. program but continue to write.

I would have jumped on a publishing course in a heartbeat. They actually have courses in the journalism department that address publication of articles and nonfiction. I wish I had known that as well during my MFA.

And I agree, they should rethink their model to try and help students obtain success. It benefits the department if they have alumni with clout and who might be able to donate now and then--or drum up awareness/support.

CrastersBabies said:

Then that teacher has no concept of boundaries. I had a student try to drop a 250k-word sci-fi/zombie book into my lap. Not happening. Sure they can submit pages from it for workshop within class perimeters, but if a teacher tackles the teaching of queries and synopses, then they should be practical enough to know that they're not there to do a student's work for them.

Students from my MFA submitted constantly to literary magazines across 3 years. I don't know of a single one who brought all their rejections in and tried to monopolize a teacher's time with it all.

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... thnx for the insight.
Was just taking a guess as to why a course of the
sort wasn't offered. Would seem useful to me too.

Ken said:

... thnx for the insight.
Was just taking a guess as to why a course of the
sort wasn't offered. Would seem useful to me too.

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I think you hit on a point that a does happen quite a bit to creative writing instructors. I imagine it would happen with queries to some extent, too.

It's amazing at how many students come to you and ask you to read their full manuscripts. I've had it happen numerous times. I think it goes with the "offering encouragement" territory. Some people see that as an open invitation to give you their work, unsolicited, without realizing an instructor's current workload and personal writing endeavors.

I would have found a class on publishing immensely useful.